Carrier route record

AALAX→DCA

American Airlines · Los Angeles to Washington

Flights: 728
Period: September 2025 to August 2026
Share of route: 50%
Carriers: 3

Historical statistics for September 2025 to August 2026, not live status. For today’s flights, check with American Airlines.

American on LAX to DCA lands a B, 3 points better than the national rate of 77.3%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That rests on 728 flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.

The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate American on LAX to DCA from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.

On time

80.5%

Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 714 completed flights

Avg delay

66 min

Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights

Cancelled

1.10%

National rate is 1.89%

Whole route

79.9%

Every carrier on LAX to DCA, 1,454 flights

These figures cover 728 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. The median arrival is 9 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.

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Carrier by carrier

American against every carrier on LAX to DCA

American flew 728 of the 1,454 flights on LAX to DCA, most of the route. Its 80.5% on time is about level with the route as a whole at 79.9%. Ranked by on-time rate it is first of three carriers on the route, where the range runs from American at 80.5% to Alaska at 78.2%. Two of those carriers flew fewer than 365 flights here, so treat their positions as rough.

Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.

On-time performance by carrier on LAX to DCA
Airline	Flights	On time	Avg delay	Cancelled	Grade
American Airlines (this page)	728	80.5%	66 min	1.10%	B
Delta Air Linesthin sample	362	80.4%	101 min	2.21%	B
Alaska Airlinesthin sample	364	78.2%	68 min	0.82%	B+

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Departure window

When American runs best on this route

Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.

5am–8am92 flights90.1%
8am–11am272 flights85.8%
11am–2pm364 flights74.2%
2pm–5pm—
5pm–8pm—
8pm–5am—

Scale runs 65% to 95%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.

The weak window here is the middle of the day, not the evening: 11am–2pm runs 74.2% on time against 90.1% for 5am–8am. That shape usually means a departure bank rather than an accumulating delay, so the recovery later in the afternoon is real rather than noise. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 364 flights scheduled in it.

Across the year

American on LAX to DCA through the year

Darker means more delays. Figures are on-time percentages.October best, July worst

July is the worst month at 64.9% on time, 25 points below October, the best at 90.3%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. January was the busiest month here, with 62 flights.

Across the week, Thursday is the strongest day at 88.3% on time and Sunday the weakest at 70.0%, a spread of 18 points.

Arrival by arrival

How late American on LAX to DCA runs when it is late

American on LAX to DCA often beats the schedule: 265 of 714 completed flights, 37%, arrived 15 minutes or more early. The 139 late arrivals split 55 under half an hour, 35 between 30 and 60 minutes, and 49 an hour or more.

15+ min early265 flights37.1%
Within 15 min310 flights43.4%
15–29 min late55 flights7.7%
30–59 min late35 flights4.9%
1–2 hours late29 flights4.1%
2+ hours late20 flights2.8%

Scale runs 0% to 100%.

Share of 714 completed flights by arrival against schedule.

33 of 135 late departures made up the time and arrived on time, 24% of them. In the other direction, 37 flights left on time yet arrived 15 minutes late or more, so that delay built up after pushback: in the air, in a holding pattern or on the ground at DCA.

The worst days

Worst days for American on LAX to DCA

The latest arrival of the period was on 9 January 2026, 6 hours 35 minutes behind schedule; most of its delay minutes were filed as a late-arriving aircraft. The same cause led on five of the five worst days.

The latest arrivals of American on LAX to DCA in the period
Date	Arrived late by	Largest filed cause
9 January 2026	6 hours 35 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
27 July 2026	6 hours 29 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
4 October 2025	6 hours 16 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
23 November 2025	6 hours 6 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft
22 August 2026	4 hours 38 minutes	Late-arriving aircraft

Delay causes

Why American runs late on this route

Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 9,209 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.

Late-arriving aircraft
47%
Carrier
29%
National Airspace System
21%
Security
2%
Extreme weather
1%

47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 9,209 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 47 to one. The split is drawn from 9,209 reported delay minutes.

The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 90.1% on time here.

Cancellations sit at 1.10% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.82%.

Connections and stage length

What a delay here costs

6.9% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.3%, so a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.

At 2,311 miles this is transcontinental flying, and long routes get a quiet structural advantage. Scheduled block time on a flight this length carries more padding in absolute minutes, so a twenty-minute late departure often still becomes an on-time arrival. Read the on-time rate here as slightly flattering next to a short-haul route with the same operational quality.

The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 77.3% on time across 728 flights, 3 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 3 points of difference.

One caution: this is a thin sample. 728 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor but not enough to pin the rate down tightly, and a single bad week moves it by more than a point. Treat the grade as a rough reading.

What to do with this

Booking American on LAX to DCA

Put together: treat all of this as provisional. 728 flights over twelve months is enough to clear this site's floor and not enough to be confident to better than a couple of points. The 80.5% headline is the most reliable number on the page; the hour and month splits below it are built on a few dozen flights each. 714 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.

Where to go next

Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated 22 October 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.

Key figures